Why I joined a User Group:
I believe that when users of a service of product come together and share knowledge, synergy builds between them and new ideas and new concepts come out of this association. I wished to get acquainted with all the professional people who are passionate about Java. A user group sounds the exact answer to this wish. The point to note is this objective has not been achieved till now when I look back to all the activities we have done through this group.
Achievement since 2008 to 2010
In Java User Group Nagpur from 2008 to 2010 we have 162 members and low activity email traffic on the mailing list. We had three events where we met and had Java related sessions. Through this group discussions a new NetBeans User Group Nagpur got started which is a focused group for people passionate about NetBeans IDE and NetBeans Platform.

Student's participation
Our JUG has most of the participation from students studying in undergraduate schools and colleges. They want t interact with people working with Java and people having mor eexperience, so they get guidance.

Java professional's participation
I assumed that the people who are working in software development companies and product companies in and around Nagpur will join this Java User Group. The expectation was that, these people will discover the user group from Internet and then will join by their own. If I take my example as I tried to search for a User Group, I assumed that there may be many people who will also do the same and then will join the group and then we will have a steady flow of mails with discussions on Java and trends in Java. After examining the data of the members we have I found that most of the members have joined the group when they were students. The members who currently work with Java are too few.

There may be multiple reasons for working people not joining the group:

The group may not be visible to people easily and as they don't know they have not joined.

They know there is a Java user Group in Nagpur but they feel joining a User Group is a waste of time and energy

They may be having impression that the User Group is only for students and advanced professionals shall not join such groups

They may have the desire to join but they may be so occupied with their work tasks that they have almost assumed that joining a User Group will not be feasible in their busy schedule

They may feel the User Group is not worth joining as it does not have any popular person to represent.

My observation is, as soon as these points are written I can add action items to overcome these points and keep going on to build the community of people passionate for Java. I believe this group will get representation from Java professionals gradually.

Objectives of JUG Nagpur
* Spread Java Awareness
* Provide forum for people interested in Java to collaborate
* Reach local schools and colleges and conduct sessions for Java
* Spread awareness for Open Source software Arrange group meetings
* Arrange expert sessions for current trends and new techniques in Java
* Identify local experts and provide recognition to them